


Two Extraordinary Men

by Hencemyname



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Humour, Mild Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-30
Updated: 2014-01-30
Packaged: 2018-01-10 13:57:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1160499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hencemyname/pseuds/Hencemyname
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For John and Sherlock, life isn't always about the thrill of the chase; the wind whipping through their hair; or the adrenaline pumping through their veins.  Sometimes there's down time.  God help us all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Two Extraordinary Men

**Author's Note:**

> A series of vignettes featuring two extraordinary men doing utterly ordinary things.
> 
> Unbetaed or Brit-picked.
> 
> For Tish.

**i. Two Extraordinary Men**

Doctor John H. Watson sleeps with a loaded pistol under his pillow every night (safety on) should something go amiss.  He prays every night that it does.

Detective Sherlock Holmes posts signs with his address around the most notoriously shifty parts of London, stapled to 20 pound notes.  He often forgets to lock his door.

Doctor John H. Watson regularly flirts with disaster and beautiful women.  Sometimes both in one evening.

Detective Sherlock Holmes is disaster personified.  Women aren't really his area.

This is a collection of shorts featuring two extraordinary men doing very ordinary, mundane tasks and trying not to go crazier while doing them.

 

**ii. and Their Morning Routines**

Sherlock is brushing his teeth when he realizes that his lower left side molar is strangely absent.  In its place is a gaping maw, and a rather sore one at that.  He marvels at it, probing with his tongue around a mouthful of toothpaste suds.  "Curious," He mutters, and then shouts toward the open bathroom door, "John, have you any dental experience?"

John shuffles in the doorway a moment later, slippers scraping against tile, with a piece of stiff parchment dangling from his fingers like a teddy bear.  His hair is schizophrenic and his eyes are swollen; crusted with sleep.

"No," he grumbles, and waves the parchment in the air: a red flag before a bull.  "But I might have to widen my skill set if we don't get our bills out of the red."

Sherlock dismisses their bills with an absent wave of his hand, which apparently doesn't put John into better spirits; the doctor mumbles something about the Holmes ancestors and a rather rude instrument.  Sherlock just chalks it up to a lack of sleep and urges John forward with pleading eyes.

"My molar is gone and I haven't the faintest idea why."  He clarifies once he's spit the foam into the sink and gargled.

"I'm surprised it wasn't me who knocked it out."  John quips grumpily but moves forward anyway to peer into Sherlock's mouth.  "Yeah, nasty little hole you got there.  You'll need to get it looked at."

Sherlock closes his mouth with audible snap and arches an eyebrow at him.

"By someone other than me, you tit!"  John says, exasperated.  "A proper dentist!"

"Tedious.  You're proper enough when you put your mind to it."  Sherlock pretends not to notice the doctor's pleased flush and continues.   "And I don't have time to sit through barbaric man-handling.  The Work calls, John!"

"The Work's going to have to wait then.  I can't have the World's Greatest Detective in subpar fighting form.  What'll the criminal masterminds say?"

"I'm glad you find yourself funny enough for the both of us."  Sherlock says airily, and maneuvers the man back a few feet before kicking the door shut in his smirking face.  "I can't have your dreadful sense of humour interfering with my morning routine."

John snorts inelegantly.  Sherlock wipes the toothpaste from the corners of his mouth and eyes the toilet, then the door.

"Play as cool as you'd like,” Comes John's muffled reply.  "But bloody Febreze when you're done this time.  I'm tired of smelling your massive dump when I take my shower."

Sherlock turns on the sink faucet to drown out the sounds of John's laughter.

++++

John is letting the shower steam up the tiny bathroom when he realizes that the water is beginning to build up in the tub.  With a low curse, he eases the shower lever over to off and bends down, bare-arsed, to peer into the drain.

Something's definitely clogging the water.  He presses his index and middle fingers together into a wedge shape and reluctantly delves in, fishing around the drain for whatever's stopping it up.  He shudders in disgust as his fingers brush against something long and weedy.  It could bloody be anything.  Knowing who his flat mate is, that "anything" is something horrific.

He steels his nerves and grabs ahold of its floating tendrils.  He's seen worse things in the war, he tells himself, as he begins to pull it from its murky depths.  The water begins to drain as his hand emerges--

completely wrapped in several long, dark curly strands of hair.

He stares at it with a mixture of relief and disgust, before hurling it into the bin.

"You and your bloody hair, Sherlock!"  He yells, loud enough for the entire building to hear; his flat mate takes a cheerful sip of his coffee.

 

  **iii. and Their Taste in Music**

"Look, Sherlock," John says, trying to keep a tentative hold on his rapidly wearing patience.  "If you insist on driving me all the way to bleeding Wales, then I'm at least going to listen to some tunes.  Not all of us mere mortals can last four hours in a car with nothing to do."

Sherlock sighs, long and dramatic, which is as close to acceptance as John's bound to get.  He makes full use of it and grabs his travel kit, which he'd had the foresight to keep under his bed and ready to go for situations like this.  He sorts through a change of clothes, a few errant hygiene products, and comb until his fingers brush against his CD binder.  He pulls it out with a carefully stoic expression as Sherlock watches him suspiciously from the corner of his eye.

Sherlock's not to know but John's packed the binder with every horrendous piece of music he could get his hands on from the last thirty years.  If he's going to have to suffer through the man's moods, he'll get his own where he can.

He happily selects an innocuous looking silver CD-- burnt disc, therefore no giveaways-- and pops it into the rental's disc player.  Sherlock eyes the radio with distaste and sniffs, pretending to be above it all; John's inner child is nearly shitting himself with anticipation and mirth.

A few beats of pop music start, already making his friend's dark eyebrow twitch with irritation.  Oh, this will be brilliant.

"MY NAME IS TOENAIL AND I'M A LITTLE PRETTY GIRL TRAPPED INSIDE A GROWN UP'S BODY!"  John watches Sherlock forcibly restrain himself as the pop music contorts into a woman's petulant, heavily accented vocals.  The man's slim fingers tighten around the steering wheel with each off-key utterance, and John delights in the appearance of a vein throbbing visibly in the centre of his forehead.

"John.  WHAT.  IS.  THIS."  It's said through clenched teeth; sounding slightly lispy as Sherlock's wont to do when he's on the edge of pitching a massive bitch fit.  His friend is a giant child sometimes, he thinks fondly.

John fakes a look of contrition, hastily ejecting the CD from its cozy with a murmured apology.  "Have no idea how that got in mix.  Must have been Lestrade's."

Sherlock hums, managing to sound both non-committal and disbelieving in one fell swoop, as John shoves in another CD-- purple this time-- marked BJ.  _Booty Jams._

He barely manages to keep from cackling as a deep bass starts pounding throughout their small rental car; fast-paced and decidedly trashy. 

" GET LOW, GET LOW, GET LOW.  TO THE WINDOW!  TO THE WALL!"

John's risks a glance over at Sherlock as he cranks the volume, eager to laugh outright at the man's misery-- only to find him tapping along and humming vaguely, attention entirely on the road ahead of him.

The ever-loving fuck?

"So," He starts, going for conversational, and failing miserably.  "Lil Jon fan, are you?”

Sherlock waves his hand in a dismissive gesture and commences tapping out the beat on the steering wheel.  "Mycroft despises most hip-hop. Naturally, I took advantage of it."  His lips quirk. "You should have seen him during my MC Hammer phase."

And that sets the tone for the rest of the trip.  With a burst of boyish mischief, they repeatedly prank call Mycroft and blast atrocious 90's hip-hop, until John's mobile mysteriously bursts into flames.

+++++

John is smack-dab in the middle of getting his cock swallowed by Mrs. Phipps, his tenth form English teacher, when his world crumbles.  Soft, feminine moans of pleasure turn into deep, masculine wails of "bored!  John, I'm so bored!” accompanied by the horrid screeching of a mistreated violin.

It's the soundtrack to Hell.

He opens his eyes blearily, taking in the miserable, narrow face hovering mere inches from his own.  Sherlock is straddling him, blue dressing gown flaring around him dramatically, as he abuses his violin; murdering music right in John's ear.

"Sherlock," He starts, his voice croaking out; coated with sleep-sand and too-little hydration the night before.  He clears his throat and tries again, pitching it over the sonorous wailing.  "Can you explain to me why you're playing your bloody violin right on top of my chest in the middle of the night?"  His voice rises slowly in pitch until he's yelling at the madman, who-- for his part-- as barely stopped his strop long enough to listen.

"Bored!" Sherlock says by way of explanation, and emphasizes this point with an impatient bounce on John's chest, knocking the air out of him.

"You're going to impale me with your bony arse!"  He wheezes, and then immediately regrets it.

"Decidedly not the best choice of words considering our positions and your erection," Sherlock drawls; out of his temper long enough to smirk down at John. 

"Oi!  It's not like they correlate!  I happened to be getting a proper leg over before you interrupted.  The perpetual cock-block--even in dreams!"

Sherlock's eyebrows snap down, temper flaring, as he hisses, "Nothing is more important than my mind, John!  You should be attending to my boredom so I don't stagnate and rot into nothing.   How will you live with yourself if my brain is rendered to mush while you're otherwise engaged?"

John rolls his eyes and sighs, letting his heavy lids close for a second.  Sherlock Holmes, the bloody drama queen.  "Somehow I'd find a way." 

He's just about to drift off to sleep when the blasted violin picks up again.  It's all John can do not to beat the man with it.  "Look, if you're going to stay in here and bother me, play me something nice.  It's half three in the morning; I deserve to be wooed awake."

"I'm not playing _Guns n' Roses_ again, John--"

"No, no," He interrupts before Sherlock can work himself up again.  "You pick.  Just nothing... screechy."

There's a long, worrisome pause that has John opening his eyes in suspicion but Sherlock's only looking down at him, a thoughtful moue to his lips.  Relaxing, John starts to drift off--

only to be abruptly awoken by a hard smack to his face.

"JESUS!  What the fuck was that for?"

"Accident."  Like bloody hell it was.  "I can play you a rather annoying adagio that I've had stuck in my head all day.  Blasted thing." 

"Mm.  Who by?"  John murmurs, still fighting heavily with sleep.  When there's no response, he cracks open one eye and sees Sherlock looking away, as uncomfortable as the man can get.  This interests him and he tries to sit up, forgetting for a second that the detective's perched on his chest.  He gives up and lies back down.  "Is it yours?"

Sherlock looks down at him sharply, lithe body rigid.  "Why?  Is that a problem?"

John grins disarmingly.  "Only if it sucks." 

Sherlock relaxes and his mouth twitches.  "As if anything I do could be subpar."

And with that, Sherlock begins to play.

 

+++++

 

**iv. and Their Rainy Day Entertainment**

It's a grey Sunday afternoon, dreary and raining.  Most normal Londoners are tucked in their homes, bundled up against the chill with a good book or a board game.  For once, John and Sherlock are among the normal ones.  Fortunately, Mycroft has decided to join them; thus bringing them safely back to the abnormal range.

John slams his silver dog down on the board.  "I keep telling you that you can't move your piece to the other side of the board for no reason, Sherlock.  You've got to use the dice!"

"And I keep telling you that Mycroft is cheating!  There's no way he has hotels on all the blues, yellows, AND greens without having done something nefarious to get them.  Called in few favours, perhaps?"

"Really, Sherlock.  It's a game.  As if I’d waste the resources."  Mycroft sighs from his imperious perch on the guest couch, yet John notices the man’s eyes shift toward his ever present mobile. That doesn’t bode well.

"That's what you'd like us all to think, isn't it?"  Sherlock snaps.  “We all blink our eyes innocently, completely unaware while you scheme and snap up the choicest bits of real-estate.  It's China all over again!"

John frowns at that but decides the question can hold until later.  Much later.  When Sherlock’s calmed down a bit. Maybe had a cigarette.  Or ten.   As it stands now, his flat mate looks like he’s moments from stapling the game board to Mycroft’s smug forehead.

"It's hardly my fault you decided the best technique was to focus your energy on the browns and the utilities--" Mycroft says, inspecting his immaculate cuticles in the perfect picture of boredom.

"Everyone lands on the browns, Mycroft, and no man can live without water!"

“And somehow, brother mine,” Mycroft drawls, a slow, creeping smile making its way across his pinched features.  “I’m _winning_.”

John ducks.

 

 

And that’s how a Monopoly board came to join its brethren, the illustrious Cluedo board, on the wall; a knife and several bullet holes through the heart of it.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so.
> 
> I had way too much fun writing this. Hopefully it was just as enjoyable to read. 
> 
> Songs on John's CD mixes are, "I Don't Want to Be a Crappy Housewife" by Tonja, and "Get Low" by Lil Jon and the Eastside Boyz. (I highly recommend the former if you want to have a good laugh.)
> 
> Let me know your thoughts, opinions, comments, concerns.


End file.
